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Romney Wants to INCREASE MILITARY SPENDING and REVERSE Obama's Cuts (Why -- plans on using it?)
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Annie Birdsong
Nov 4, 2012, 11:42:18 AM11/4/12
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Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
In the year 2012, the U.S. Defense Department spent $530 billion -- that's $1,095,403 per minute and $18,256 per second.
President Barack Obama cut $1 Trillion from defense, but Romney wants to increase the military budget by $2.3 trillion over 10 years.
Former President Jimmy Carter once said we spend about as much as the whole world put together on defense.
When we consider military spending, we also must figure in the interest on the debt caused by such high military expenses. When this is included, the United States spends 55 cents of every dollar on the military, according to Charles Hauss in his book "Comparative Politics: Domestic Responses to Global Challenges -- third edition."
It is very expensive to maintain a permanent war economy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labors, the genius of its scientists and the hope of its children."
Consider what was wasted in Iraq. The total budgetary and economic cost of the Iraq War was around $3 trillion when everything is figured in, including future retirement compensation, disability payments, replacing worn out equipment etc, according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize- winning economist at Columbia University, who was chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, senior-vice president and chief economist at the World Bank, and Linda J. Bilmes, an economist at Harvard University, who is an expert in government finance. She is a former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
If our brightest and best prepared minds ran our political parties -- our college professors -- rather than vested interests -- we probably would have spent that money -- more than 3 trillion -- ending the causes of war.
Stone Age: Romney Speaks Out FOR Coal Burning Power Plant!
Mitt Romney, who is running for president, has spoken out against "environmental extremism" that would keep us from utilizing our coal resources and other fossil fuels "to the fullest extent."
And in a debate, Romney said to Obama, "By the way, I like coal. People in the coal industry think they are getting thrushed by your policies."
He is so out of touch with our environmentalists.
In a speech, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a powerful environnmental attorney, said:
“The National Academy of Sciences published a five-year study that showed that every fresh water fish in America is now contaminated with mercury. It's coming from coal burning power plants.
“This industry has essentially privatized all the fish in New York State in order to make themselves richer, they have stolen something from the public and made it so that we can't use it anymore.
“The constitution of New York says the fish belong to the people. Everybody has a right to use them.
"Nobody can use them in a way that will diminsh or injure their use and enjoyment by others. It's called the Public Trust Doctrine.
"It's 2,000 years old, it's in the Code of Jestinium, it's in the Magna Carta. ... It's in the constitution of every state.
"It applies to the waters and all the commons -- the fish, the water, the air, the public lands, wondering animals etc.
"According to the Centers for Disease Control, one out of every six women has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, including autism, blindness, mental retardation, heart, liver and kidney disease."
Kennedy, who fishes a lot and eats the fish, said tests reveal that he has 10 times what the Environmental Protection Agency considers to be safe.
He said Dr. David Carpenter, the national authority on mercury toxicity, told him that a woman with his level of mercury would have children cognitive impairment and permanent brain damage.
"I said to him she might have it," said Kennedy. "No, no, no. The science is very certain today. Her children would have some level of permanent neurological injury, probably, at my levels, an I.Q. loss of 5 to 7 points."
Below is a youtube video about people who had eaten fish contaminated with mercury in Minimata, Japan: BE ALARMED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihFkyPv1jtU
MOTHER’S need to RISE UP against coal mining! We need solar and wind.
In Sweden, it is mother’s who go to the government complaining of the environmental pollution. “We can not have it, “ they say.
Poisons accumulate in a woman’s body fat over the years and pass from her maternal cord blood to the young infant and from her breast milk to the baby. The body fat is tapped when breast milk is made.
The babies are very vulnerable to pollutants because they are developing their bodies.
A wrong chemical signal can cause development to go awry.
We need to remake the way we make things using appropriate technologies. This is one of the agendas of ecological economics – the right livelihood movement -- also called Buddhist economics.
COAL MINING AND OUR MOUNTAINS:
Another reason to be deeply alarmed by coal mining is that it is destroying our mountains.
Below is an article I wrote on the need to protect MOUNTAINS:
If future generations are to have adequate water supplies, mountains must be carefully protected, for all of the world's major rivers and many of the smaller ones start off as streams in the mountains, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO.
Mountains are up there in the clouds and get more rainfall than lower elevations.
There are various ways mountains produce water. In some places, water penetrates into a mountain and travels along the coal seam or along other rocks, then trickles out of the side of the mountain forming springs and streams.
In other places, water penetrates into mountains and is stored in huge natural storage tanks. For instance, in the Himalayan Mountains, these natural storage tanks are formed by cracks, fissures and dissolved areas within limestone rocks.
Enormous quantities of water from the Monsoon Rains get stored, which means there is water for the dry season. Water trickling out of these aquifers feeds thousands of springs and hundreds of streams, which pour enormous quantities of water into the great Ganges River and many other major rivers, according to Dr. Vandana Shiva.
Though limestone in the Himalayas plays a critical role in hydrology, it is being mined for use in the production of cement, steel, chemicals, sugar, textiles and other industries.
And in spite of the great hydrological importance of mountains, in the Appalachian Mountains, aquifers formed by coal and other rocks are being exploded by a coal mining technique called "mountaintop removal" that has blasted away the peaks of 500 mountains in just over a decade in the Appalachian Mountains.
About half of the mountain is removed.
Removing the coal seams removes the aquifers and replaces them with mine spoil, according to the National Research Council's Committee on Ground Water.
Furthermore, when the mountain tops are exploded, millions of tons of soil, rock and toxic heavy metals within the earth bury the streams in the valleys, impeding their flow to the rivers. These streams are permanently lost, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
since 1992, 2000 miles of streams have been buried due to surface mining in the United States, said Peter Harrison, who is with the Clean Energy Campaign with the WaterKeepers Alliance in New York, New York.
If you dry up the streams that feed our rivers and so other things that dry up the rivers, the country will become a desert. Indeed, our planet is drying up.
Also significant, the heavy metals in the mine spoil poisons the water with acid mine drainage so that the steams become dead -- fish can not live in them -- and the water is undrinkable. (The acid rain from coal burning power plants change the mercury in the exposed rocks and soil to methyl mercury, which washes into the streams and rivers and is taken up by fish.)
Thousands of streams in the United States are dead, nothing can live, not only from acid mine drainage, but also from acid rain.
Dr. Nicholas Robinson, a professor at the Pace University School of Law, said, "Mountaintop removal has only been allowed in the United States. It hasn't been used in other countries."
A typical coal burning power plant burns through a train car load of coal every 12 hourse.
The typical American consumes about four tons of coal per person per year and nearly 700 pounds of metal, according to David Simpson, a professor of international policy at Johns Hopkins University.
Auto dependency has a great impact on mountains. For example, molybdenum, which is used in making high strength steel, occurs in "very very very low concentrations -- one percent, maybe. In order to get it, you pretty much have to grind up the entire mountain," said Dr. Anne Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Yet molybdenan is just one of many metals used in making steel.
In the United States, One hundred thousand ore deposits have been mined and abandoned, according to Robin McCulloch, state mining engineer with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology.
(Some abandoned mines may still contain resources that are not easily obtained and mining companies may go back in them at some point, according to McCulloch.)
(Technical note: two hundred thousand mines have been abandoned, but you might have two mines for one ore deposit, explained McCulloch, adding that a mine is just an opening.)
"We're seeing an end of many industrial minerals," he said, adding that a recent paper out of Yale University said even if we were doing 100 percent recycling, "we are short 30 percent of the mineral materials needed on a worldwide basis. There just is not the supply out there."
What must we do to safeguard our water supply? We must reduce our consumption of metal. We must consider our metals as too precious to ever end up in the dump. We need to put into place extensive recycling programs like they have in Europe. For instance, if your blow dryer breaks, it would be illegal to threw it in the trash. Manufacturers of products take them back and either recycle or repair them and put them back on the market.
We also need policies that encourage the people to rely on public transportation, such as subways, light rail, buses and trolley cars rather than personal vehicles.
High taxes on fuel rather than income would force many to take the subway to work -- which is what is done in Europe.
Another strategy is for states to follow the lead of New York, which began in the 1970s purchasing mountaintops, as well as complete watersheds -- the region or area that drains into a water body -- to protect the hydrological functions of these areas.
And we need to follow the lead of California, which has phased out all coal burning power plants and made significant strides to phase in energy supplied by the sun, wind and tides.
SAY NO TO REPUBLICANS! THEY ARE ANTI-GOVERNMENT RADICALS FOR DEREGULATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT.
Here is a must see video -- a cautionary tale about the Republican Party and how they manage our very important Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pPsLKKUcBs&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=2&feature=plcp
Here are more videos in this series:
Why the party you vote for REALLY MATTERS:
Part 1: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Budgeting and Regulating the Financial Sector:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=rMG9Vmz0PiA&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=4&feature=plcp
Part 2: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Breaking Our Dependence on Foreign Oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vZCI6pcFzM8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=37&feature=plcp
PART 3: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Environmental Protection:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3pPsLKKUcBs&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=2&feature=plcp
Part 4: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
The Invasion of Nicaragua:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=irYUF9wqfLo&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=36&feature=plcp
Part 5: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Trade:
Reagan's trade representative, Carlton Yeutter, bullied other countries like
Japan, Korea and Taiwan into opening their markets to tobacco.
He also dismantled carefully crafted trade strategies set up to protect wages and maintain full employment.
"Reagan and George Bush set the state for the new free trade agreements that began eating away at the manufacturing base of the country," said Senator Byron L.
Dorgan, D-North Dakota. "They passed the batton to President Clinton, who pursued the same strategy."
The result is that in the last 10 years, more than 50,000 factories have moved
overseas to take advantage of cheap labor, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Furthermore, millions of small farmers across the world have been pushed off the land.
Part 6: Part 6: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Demise of the Fairness Doctrine:
Perhaps the greatest blow to our democracy -- one still felt today -- was Reagan's impact on the free and balanced flow of information.
When radio and TV first began to be aired in American homes, our Congressmen
realized that broadcasting can have tremendous influence on public opinion and
thought, giving the people a lens through which they see issues -- shaping their worldview.
Thus, many congressmen wanted to ensure that powerful individuals did not
monopolize the media as a tool of propaganda, airing biased information to promote their own narrow interests, telling only one side of vital issues that affect peoples lives.
Thus Congress built a strong foundation to ensure that debate on public issues is robust and wide open by amending 315(a) of the Communications Act to include this sentence:
"Nothing in the foregoing [the equal opportunities provision] shall be construed as relieving broadcasters, in connection with the presentation of newscasts, news interview, news documentaries, and on-the-spot coverage of news events, from the obligation imposed upon them under this act to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance."
Also, it was established that the airwaves legally belong to the people.
Broadcasters are liscensed to use the airwaves to serve public interest.
In the early years, the FCC did not allow broadcasters to use their stations to
promote their own political, social or economic views, according to laywers Ralph L. Holsinger and Jon Paul Dilts.
"Rather they are to operate their stations as a sort of community smorgasbord,
laden with points of view and political arguments representing all shades of
opinion on public issues. No one opinion is to be advanced over another, but all arguments are to be given a reasonble airing."
This regulation came to be called The Fairness Doctrine. It had a "profound impact on the coverage of news for 30 years," said Holsinger and Dilts.
The Supreme Ct. upheld the Fairness Doctrine in 1969 in the Red Lion vs. FCC
decision which emphasized that the airwaves are to be "an uninhibited marketplace
of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail rather than to countenance
monopolization of the market."
In a profound blow to free speech, Ronald Reagan's FCC declared the Fairness
Doctrine obsolete after receiving a complaint the administration did not wish to resolve made by the Syracuse Peace Council pertaining to a broadcast in which arguments in support of nuclear power outnumbered arguments against it by ten to one.
One of his main reasons for doing so was that the Supreme Court explained in the Red Lion decision that the Fairness Doctrine is justified because of "the
scarcity" of radio frequencies.
The Reagan administration said that now that we have cable and Internet, it is no longer justified.
In Miami Herald Publishing vs. Tornillo, the court responded to this argument. The court said, "We are not prepared , however, to reconsider our longstanding
approach without some signal from Congress or the FCC that technological
developments ahve advanced so far that some revision of the system of broadcast
regulation may be required."
So Reagan's FCC sent the signal and abolished the doctrine.
THE SUPREME COURT SETS OUT TO RESTORE THE FREE AND BALANCED FLOW OF INFORMATION:
Later, in 1994, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of scarcity in the Turner
Broadcasting Decision Vs. FCC. In this decision, the court said: "Although courts and commentators have criticized the scarcity rationale since its inception, we have declined to question its continuing validity as support for our broadcast jurisprudence." (THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCE SPOKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY.)
And keep in mind that the public has a LEGAL RIGHT to broadcasting that serves the ends and purposes of the First Amendment -- broadcasting that tells all relevant points of view -- an uninhibited marketplace of ideas where truth can prevail.
This right of yours and mine CAN NOT BE DONE AWAY WITH BY CONGRESS OR FCC -- said the court.
This Rush Limbaugh programs and 1,999 others, that monopolizes, telling only one point of view, is highly illegal.
However, the FCC has refused to resume regulation of broadcasts to ensure that all sides of controversial issues are aired.
No one in Congress or the FCC seems to realize that the Supreme Court ruled on the scarcity of broadcast frequencies and overturned Reagan's justification for
abolishing the Fairness Doctrine.
Below are longer excerpts of the two Supreme Court decisions mentioned above:
Red Lion vs. Federal Communication Commssion -- 1969:
"Because of the scarcity of radio frequencies, the government is permitted to put restrictions on licensees in favor of others whose views should be expressed on this unique medium. But the people as a hole retain their interest in free speech by radio and their collective right to have the medium function consistently with the ends and purposes of the First Amendment. It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters which is paramount. ... It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail rather than to countenance monopolization of the market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee. ... It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here, that right may not be constitutionally abridged either by Congress or FCC."
Turner Broadcasting vs. FCC -- 1994:
"It is true that our cases have permitted more intrusive regulation of broadcast
speakers than of speakers in other media. But the rationale for applying a less rigorous standard of First Amendment scrutiny to broadcast regulation does not apply in the context of cable regulation. The justification for our distinct approach to broadcast regulation rests upon the unique physical limitations of the broadcast medium. As a general matter, there are more would be broadcasters than frequencies available in the electromagnetic spectrum. And if two broadcasters were to attempt to transmit over the same frequency in the same locale, they would interfere with one another's signals, so that neither could be heard at all. The scarcity of broadcast frequencies thus required the establishment of some regulatory mechanism to divide the electromagnetic spectrum and assign specific frequencies to particular broadcasters. In addition, the inherent physical limitation on the number of speakers who may use the broadcast medium has been thought to require some adjustment in traditional First Amendment analysis to permit the Government to place limited content restraints, and impose certain affirmative obligations, on broadcast licensees. As we said in Red Lion, '[w]here there are substantially more individuals who want to broadcast than there are
frequencies to allocate, it is idle to posit an unabridgeable First Amendment
right to broadcast comparable to the right of every individual to speak, write, or publish.' Although courts and commentators have criticized the scarcity rationale since its inception, we have declined to question its continuing validity as support for our broadcast jurisprudence. The broadcast cases are inapposite in the present context because cable television does not suffer from the inherent limitations that characterize the broadcast medium."
---------------------------
Note: Keep in mind that the court explained that while it would be
unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment, for the government to
intervene to enforce fairness on cable news or in newspapers, the opposite is true in regard to broadcasting. Broadcasting is a "unique" medium. The airwaves legally belong to the people, are a scarce public resource and broadcasters are licensed to serve public interest, the government may intervene to make broadcasting serve "the ends and purposes of the First Amendment" by preventing "monopolization of the market." (Again, its rooted in the First Amendment.)
More Technical Information:
When abolishing the Fairness Doctrine, Reagan's FCC also argued that the Fairness Doctrine has a chilling affect on free speech, that the FCC should allow one- sided, bias reporting because if you mandate that all sides be told, the broadcasters would simply avoid certain issues and say nothing.
He justified this by the Supreme Ct. case the Federal Communications Commission
v. League of Women Voters of California. In this case, the court said it would have to re-evaluate the Fairness Doctrine if the FCC can demonstrate that the Fairness Doctrine does not enhance coverage of controversial issues.
(I say if they don't want to tell all sides, fine, give the license to someone
else. And again, the doctrine had a profound effect on the coverage of news for 30 years. There was a sharp decline in balance when the doctrine was abolished.
FURTHERMORE, IT WAS TO BE THE COURT THAT MAKES THE DECISION, NOT THE FCC.)
The court addressed the possibility of the doctrine having a chilling affect in
the Red Lion decision: "The Fairness Doctrine in the past has had no such overall effect. That this will occur now seems unlikely, however, since if present licensees should suddenly prove timorous, the Commission is not powerless to insist that they give adequate and fair attention to public issues. It does not violate the First Amendment to treat licensees given the privilege of using scarce radio frequencies as proxies for the entire community, obligated to give suitable time and attention to matters of great public concern."
Moreover, the Red Lion decision makes it clear that the people have a First
Amendment right to a Fairness Doctrine, that monopolization of the radio by one
point of view violates that right and that our right to receive full information -- full access to the country's rich diverse dialogue -- "can not be abridged by Congress or the FCC" (The Federal Communications Commission):
----------------------------
After Reagan's wrongheaded destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, the nature of
radio changed. About 2000 programs became yellow journalism -- conservative
propaganda of the rich with no effort at balance, in complete abdication of the
Red Lion Supreme Ct. decision and Section 315 of the 1959 Communication Act.
Only 50 programs in the country are liberal.
"People from other industrial democracies are shocked and puzzled by our right
wing propaganda machine," said Dr. Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the graduate
school of the University of California, Berkeley and author of the book, "The New Media Monopoly."
Here's a typical example of conservative radio propaganda. A broadcaster said,
"Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are coming after your pensions and health care!"
That one stung, for just the opposite is true.
Dr. Bagdikian explained that in the years since 1980, "The political spectrum of the United States has shifted radically to the far right. What was once the center has been pushed to the left, and what was the far right is now the center. What was considered the eccentric right wing of American politics is now considered the normal conservative outlook. What was the left is now at the far edge, barely holding its precarious position and treated in the news as a sometimes amusing oddity."
Exposing Every Lie: Ryan Not a Deficit Hawk
"Mr. Ryan -- who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts -- is still posing as a deficit hawk," wrote Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize recipient in economics, journalist with the New York Times and professor with Princeton University.
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Senator Bernie Sanders: Republicans Would Impoverish the Elderly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scQRRfcQHqg
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Conservative Supreme Court Justices Deliver A Blow To Democracy
President Obama called it "a victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests. ..."
in a bitterly divided Supreme Court in 2010, the conservative majority (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Souter, and Scalia) won out over the liberal-leaning justices (Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotmayor) to prohibit the government from restricting corporate or union cash in political campaigns -- overturning 100 years of precedent.
Now, due to the Citizen's United vs. Federal Communication's decision, corporate money can flood our elections and the corporations are not even required to disclose where the money is from.
In a passionate 90 page dissent, Justice Stevens said, "A democracy can not function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are bought and sold."
He noted that 80 percent of the public "view corporate independent expenditure as a method used to gain unfair legislative access."
He said that The court's ruling "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."
He further argued that the majority opinion ignored the rights of shareholders who might not wish to fund speech they oppose.
In sharp contrast, the conservative Heritage Foundation fellow Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, celebrated the decision: "The Supreme Court has restored a part of the First Amendment that had been unfortunately stolen by Congress ..."
Republicans have many times filibustered the efforts of Democrats to curb the deleterious, corrupting influence of corporate cash (bribery) in our elections.
The Democrats struggle to fix the problem
Obama decried the fact that "no one knows who is behind these (political) ads."
He said that he and the Democrats are backing legislation proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that requires that the "folks financing" political ads "are discosed."
(This way, we're alert to hidden agendas.)
"It will enable the American people to make up their own minds," he said.
Obama added that the bill will also reduce foreign influence in our American elections.
But, as usual, not one Republican supports the legislation, for they have lost their independent thinking. But Democrats need at least one Republican to pass the legislation.
UPDATE: Republicans did kill the Disclose Act in July, 2012.
---------------------------------------------
Unbelievable. Romney Promises To Repeal Our Health Care Reform
Can you believe it?
Again and again, Romney promises to repeal our wonderful health care reform legislation, the Affordable Care Act, which was passed by Democrats without Republican support.
Romney must be in the hip pocket of health insurance companies.
If Obama Care is repealed, approximately 50 million people will have no insurance and many of them will not be able to go to the doctor. Many will die.
Furthermore, 138,000 Americans with pre-existing conditions will not be able to purchase health insurance.
Also, if the legislation is repealed, pain staking, well-advised efforts to REDUCE OUR DEFICIT while CONTROLLING THE COSTS of healthcare will fall by the wayside.
The health care bill contains four cost control mechanisms that were devised by twenty-three prominent economists, including Nobel laureates and members of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Here are the economists that devised the cost control mechanisms:
Dr. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford -- Nobel Laureate
Dr. Alan Auerbach, University of Calif, Berkeley
Dr. Katherine Baicker, Harvard University
Dr. Alan Blinder, Princeton University
Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University
Dr. Angus Deaton, Princeton University
Dr. J. Bradford DeLong, Univ. of Calif, Berkeley
Dr. Peter Diamond, Mass. Institute of Tech.
Dr. Victor Fuchs, Stanford University
Dr. Alan Garber, Stanford University
Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Mass. Institute of Tech.
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Daniel McFadden, U.of Calif., Berkeley, Nobel Laureate
Dr. David Meltzer, Univ. of Chicago
Dr. Joseph Newhouse Harvard University
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton University
Dr. Robert Reischauer, The Urban Institute
Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University
Dr. John Shovern, Stanford University
Johnathan Skinner, Dartmouth College
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley
Obama is standing on the shoulders of our best and brightest!
The cost control mechanisms the economists devised are not only projected to prevent double digit premium increases, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that these cost control mechanisms will also reduce the federal budget deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years.
Over the last two years, health care cost did continue to rise, but the rise was slower than at any time in the last 50 years.
Romney blames the increase in costs on Obama Care and spits out free market, libertarian rhetoric that government is "not affective in bringing down the cost of ANYTHING."
The best strategy of Democrats for controlling healthcare costs was to form a non-profit, government-ran program to compete with the private health insurance companies. However, this proposal was defeated when one Democrat, Joe Liberman, a senator from Massachusetts, decided to vote with Republicans against it.
-----------------------------------------------
How was health care reform subsidies paid for? Taxes on health care corporations, such as hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, companies that make medical equipment etc. After all, they will be getting $32 million or $50 million more customers because of healthcare reform.
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MORE SHORT YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIPS ON THE ELECTION:
Romney’s Incessant Bold Face Lies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5lum_h7-8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=17&feature=plcp
Reich: Romney Lied about Welfare and Medicare Cuts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpGxWHegmmw
Nobel Winner Debunks Romney's Lies About Medicare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yl-btElJkk
Romney Is Still Outsourcing Jobs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpKU1_1UEU
Romney and Ryan's Radical Budget Ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBf7PjfYOoQ
Romney's Radical Ideas On Healthcare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgz6TRPy7ZY
Radical Ryan: Privatize Social Security:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bspUa-udAs8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=13&feature=plcp
Concerning Romey's Plans to Repeal Obama's Wall Street Reform (Dodd Frank Act)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ePxNziHw9c
Concerning Romney's Embrace of Coal (He denounces "environmental extremism" that would keep us from utilizing our coal resources and other fossil fuels "to the fullest extent.")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kYeVF75RRk
Up With Chris Hayes Show: (MSNBC) Romney More Likely to Attack Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_6j0Sfwsw&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=14&feature=plcp
The Up With Chris Hayes Show:(MSNBC) Obama Would Remove Afghan Troops Quicker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEfqdZC9duU
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Hawks and Doves – Conservatives v. Liberals
During Jimmy Carter's administration, no bombs fell and no bullets were fired. Call it idealistic. Call it liberal. Call it strong.
Notice that during the Iran hostage crisis, when Reagan took office, the Iranians immediately released the hostages. They knew, without a doubt, he was a hawk and would invade the country if they had not done so. Hundreds of thousands of people might have died senseless and tragic deaths in a prolonged war.
Reagan was a mad man.
The Tao says, "Everyone knows the paradox that the weak will overcome the strong, and the gentle will prevail in the end."
The Tao also says, "Purity and stillness are the norm of the world. Simply do not contend then there will be no fault. Excellence is not winning arguments."
---------------------------------
Videos explaining war and peace issues in this election:
Republicans for War in Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYKGFCM0rk
Romney the Barbarian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV7DtwaXgOI
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Look at the PARTY and it's HISTORY. That’s because there is a SHADOW GOVERNMENT behind the scenes. The super rich pay more than a billion dollars in campaign funds and then own their man.
There no longer seems to be any independent thinking. That was a thing of the past.
When Republican congressmen come through the door, if the thumb is up, they vote yes. If the thumb is down, they vote no.
Romney sometimes talks moderate, as Republicans always do to get in power. Then he turns right around and spew far right lasseiz faire, anti government rhetoric.
Romney is slick Willy -- all things to all people. That’s how you win elections. To the rich, he says again and again across the country he will cut their taxes. Then in the debate he says he won’t. Much much lying has been going on.
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Exposing Every Lie: Ryan Not a Deficit Hawk
"Mr. Ryan -- who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only
about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts -- is still posing as a deficit hawk," wrote
Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize recipient in economics, journalist with the New York Times and professor with Princeton University.
CLEARING UP MISUNDERSTANDINGS:
Who Was to Pay for the health care subsidies? These DIDN'T COME OUT OF THE BUDGET. THESE WERE TO COME OUT OF TAXES AND FEES ON WEALTHY HEALTH CARE INDUSTRIES such as hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, companies that do X rays, companies that create healthcare products etc., as well as tobacco companies. After all, the health care legislation gives them 32 - 50 million more customers -- people that can now go to the doctor because of our strong Barack Obama.
-----------------------------------
The best strategy of Democrats for controlling healthcare costs was to form a non-profit, government-ran program to compete with the private health insurance companies. However, this proposal was defeated when one Democrat, Joe Liberman, a senator from Massachusetts, decided to vote with Republicans against it.
-----------------------------------------------
See my youtube channel: birdsongannie
See my website at: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
See my youtube channel: birdsongannie
See my website at: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Annie Birdsong
May we create a wonderful world for the children.
CAN YOU SEND THIS EMAIL TO 7 PEOPLE – FOR THE BABIES?
In the year 2012, the U.S. Defense Department spent $530 billion -- that's $1,095,403 per minute and $18,256 per second.
President Barack Obama cut $1 Trillion from defense, but Romney wants to increase the military budget by $2.3 trillion over 10 years.
Former President Jimmy Carter once said we spend about as much as the whole world put together on defense.
When we consider military spending, we also must figure in the interest on the debt caused by such high military expenses. When this is included, the United States spends 55 cents of every dollar on the military, according to Charles Hauss in his book "Comparative Politics: Domestic Responses to Global Challenges -- third edition."
It is very expensive to maintain a permanent war economy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labors, the genius of its scientists and the hope of its children."
Consider what was wasted in Iraq. The total budgetary and economic cost of the Iraq War was around $3 trillion when everything is figured in, including future retirement compensation, disability payments, replacing worn out equipment etc, according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize- winning economist at Columbia University, who was chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, senior-vice president and chief economist at the World Bank, and Linda J. Bilmes, an economist at Harvard University, who is an expert in government finance. She is a former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
If our brightest and best prepared minds ran our political parties -- our college professors -- rather than vested interests -- we probably would have spent that money -- more than 3 trillion -- ending the causes of war.
Stone Age: Romney Speaks Out FOR Coal Burning Power Plant!
Mitt Romney, who is running for president, has spoken out against "environmental extremism" that would keep us from utilizing our coal resources and other fossil fuels "to the fullest extent."
And in a debate, Romney said to Obama, "By the way, I like coal. People in the coal industry think they are getting thrushed by your policies."
He is so out of touch with our environmentalists.
In a speech, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a powerful environnmental attorney, said:
“The National Academy of Sciences published a five-year study that showed that every fresh water fish in America is now contaminated with mercury. It's coming from coal burning power plants.
“This industry has essentially privatized all the fish in New York State in order to make themselves richer, they have stolen something from the public and made it so that we can't use it anymore.
“The constitution of New York says the fish belong to the people. Everybody has a right to use them.
"Nobody can use them in a way that will diminsh or injure their use and enjoyment by others. It's called the Public Trust Doctrine.
"It's 2,000 years old, it's in the Code of Jestinium, it's in the Magna Carta. ... It's in the constitution of every state.
"It applies to the waters and all the commons -- the fish, the water, the air, the public lands, wondering animals etc.
"According to the Centers for Disease Control, one out of every six women has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, including autism, blindness, mental retardation, heart, liver and kidney disease."
Kennedy, who fishes a lot and eats the fish, said tests reveal that he has 10 times what the Environmental Protection Agency considers to be safe.
He said Dr. David Carpenter, the national authority on mercury toxicity, told him that a woman with his level of mercury would have children cognitive impairment and permanent brain damage.
"I said to him she might have it," said Kennedy. "No, no, no. The science is very certain today. Her children would have some level of permanent neurological injury, probably, at my levels, an I.Q. loss of 5 to 7 points."
Below is a youtube video about people who had eaten fish contaminated with mercury in Minimata, Japan: BE ALARMED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihFkyPv1jtU
MOTHER’S need to RISE UP against coal mining! We need solar and wind.
In Sweden, it is mother’s who go to the government complaining of the environmental pollution. “We can not have it, “ they say.
Poisons accumulate in a woman’s body fat over the years and pass from her maternal cord blood to the young infant and from her breast milk to the baby. The body fat is tapped when breast milk is made.
The babies are very vulnerable to pollutants because they are developing their bodies.
A wrong chemical signal can cause development to go awry.
We need to remake the way we make things using appropriate technologies. This is one of the agendas of ecological economics – the right livelihood movement -- also called Buddhist economics.
COAL MINING AND OUR MOUNTAINS:
Another reason to be deeply alarmed by coal mining is that it is destroying our mountains.
Below is an article I wrote on the need to protect MOUNTAINS:
If future generations are to have adequate water supplies, mountains must be carefully protected, for all of the world's major rivers and many of the smaller ones start off as streams in the mountains, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO.
Mountains are up there in the clouds and get more rainfall than lower elevations.
There are various ways mountains produce water. In some places, water penetrates into a mountain and travels along the coal seam or along other rocks, then trickles out of the side of the mountain forming springs and streams.
In other places, water penetrates into mountains and is stored in huge natural storage tanks. For instance, in the Himalayan Mountains, these natural storage tanks are formed by cracks, fissures and dissolved areas within limestone rocks.
Enormous quantities of water from the Monsoon Rains get stored, which means there is water for the dry season. Water trickling out of these aquifers feeds thousands of springs and hundreds of streams, which pour enormous quantities of water into the great Ganges River and many other major rivers, according to Dr. Vandana Shiva.
Though limestone in the Himalayas plays a critical role in hydrology, it is being mined for use in the production of cement, steel, chemicals, sugar, textiles and other industries.
And in spite of the great hydrological importance of mountains, in the Appalachian Mountains, aquifers formed by coal and other rocks are being exploded by a coal mining technique called "mountaintop removal" that has blasted away the peaks of 500 mountains in just over a decade in the Appalachian Mountains.
About half of the mountain is removed.
Removing the coal seams removes the aquifers and replaces them with mine spoil, according to the National Research Council's Committee on Ground Water.
Furthermore, when the mountain tops are exploded, millions of tons of soil, rock and toxic heavy metals within the earth bury the streams in the valleys, impeding their flow to the rivers. These streams are permanently lost, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
since 1992, 2000 miles of streams have been buried due to surface mining in the United States, said Peter Harrison, who is with the Clean Energy Campaign with the WaterKeepers Alliance in New York, New York.
If you dry up the streams that feed our rivers and so other things that dry up the rivers, the country will become a desert. Indeed, our planet is drying up.
Also significant, the heavy metals in the mine spoil poisons the water with acid mine drainage so that the steams become dead -- fish can not live in them -- and the water is undrinkable. (The acid rain from coal burning power plants change the mercury in the exposed rocks and soil to methyl mercury, which washes into the streams and rivers and is taken up by fish.)
Thousands of streams in the United States are dead, nothing can live, not only from acid mine drainage, but also from acid rain.
Dr. Nicholas Robinson, a professor at the Pace University School of Law, said, "Mountaintop removal has only been allowed in the United States. It hasn't been used in other countries."
A typical coal burning power plant burns through a train car load of coal every 12 hourse.
The typical American consumes about four tons of coal per person per year and nearly 700 pounds of metal, according to David Simpson, a professor of international policy at Johns Hopkins University.
Auto dependency has a great impact on mountains. For example, molybdenum, which is used in making high strength steel, occurs in "very very very low concentrations -- one percent, maybe. In order to get it, you pretty much have to grind up the entire mountain," said Dr. Anne Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Yet molybdenan is just one of many metals used in making steel.
In the United States, One hundred thousand ore deposits have been mined and abandoned, according to Robin McCulloch, state mining engineer with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology.
(Some abandoned mines may still contain resources that are not easily obtained and mining companies may go back in them at some point, according to McCulloch.)
(Technical note: two hundred thousand mines have been abandoned, but you might have two mines for one ore deposit, explained McCulloch, adding that a mine is just an opening.)
"We're seeing an end of many industrial minerals," he said, adding that a recent paper out of Yale University said even if we were doing 100 percent recycling, "we are short 30 percent of the mineral materials needed on a worldwide basis. There just is not the supply out there."
What must we do to safeguard our water supply? We must reduce our consumption of metal. We must consider our metals as too precious to ever end up in the dump. We need to put into place extensive recycling programs like they have in Europe. For instance, if your blow dryer breaks, it would be illegal to threw it in the trash. Manufacturers of products take them back and either recycle or repair them and put them back on the market.
We also need policies that encourage the people to rely on public transportation, such as subways, light rail, buses and trolley cars rather than personal vehicles.
High taxes on fuel rather than income would force many to take the subway to work -- which is what is done in Europe.
Another strategy is for states to follow the lead of New York, which began in the 1970s purchasing mountaintops, as well as complete watersheds -- the region or area that drains into a water body -- to protect the hydrological functions of these areas.
And we need to follow the lead of California, which has phased out all coal burning power plants and made significant strides to phase in energy supplied by the sun, wind and tides.
SAY NO TO REPUBLICANS! THEY ARE ANTI-GOVERNMENT RADICALS FOR DEREGULATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT.
Here is a must see video -- a cautionary tale about the Republican Party and how they manage our very important Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pPsLKKUcBs&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=2&feature=plcp
Here are more videos in this series:
Why the party you vote for REALLY MATTERS:
Part 1: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Budgeting and Regulating the Financial Sector:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=rMG9Vmz0PiA&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=4&feature=plcp
Part 2: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Breaking Our Dependence on Foreign Oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vZCI6pcFzM8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=37&feature=plcp
PART 3: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Environmental Protection:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3pPsLKKUcBs&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=2&feature=plcp
Part 4: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
The Invasion of Nicaragua:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=irYUF9wqfLo&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=36&feature=plcp
Part 5: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Trade:
Reagan's trade representative, Carlton Yeutter, bullied other countries like
Japan, Korea and Taiwan into opening their markets to tobacco.
He also dismantled carefully crafted trade strategies set up to protect wages and maintain full employment.
"Reagan and George Bush set the state for the new free trade agreements that began eating away at the manufacturing base of the country," said Senator Byron L.
Dorgan, D-North Dakota. "They passed the batton to President Clinton, who pursued the same strategy."
The result is that in the last 10 years, more than 50,000 factories have moved
overseas to take advantage of cheap labor, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Furthermore, millions of small farmers across the world have been pushed off the land.
Part 6: Part 6: The Bitter Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Demise of the Fairness Doctrine:
Perhaps the greatest blow to our democracy -- one still felt today -- was Reagan's impact on the free and balanced flow of information.
When radio and TV first began to be aired in American homes, our Congressmen
realized that broadcasting can have tremendous influence on public opinion and
thought, giving the people a lens through which they see issues -- shaping their worldview.
Thus, many congressmen wanted to ensure that powerful individuals did not
monopolize the media as a tool of propaganda, airing biased information to promote their own narrow interests, telling only one side of vital issues that affect peoples lives.
Thus Congress built a strong foundation to ensure that debate on public issues is robust and wide open by amending 315(a) of the Communications Act to include this sentence:
"Nothing in the foregoing [the equal opportunities provision] shall be construed as relieving broadcasters, in connection with the presentation of newscasts, news interview, news documentaries, and on-the-spot coverage of news events, from the obligation imposed upon them under this act to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance."
Also, it was established that the airwaves legally belong to the people.
Broadcasters are liscensed to use the airwaves to serve public interest.
In the early years, the FCC did not allow broadcasters to use their stations to
promote their own political, social or economic views, according to laywers Ralph L. Holsinger and Jon Paul Dilts.
"Rather they are to operate their stations as a sort of community smorgasbord,
laden with points of view and political arguments representing all shades of
opinion on public issues. No one opinion is to be advanced over another, but all arguments are to be given a reasonble airing."
This regulation came to be called The Fairness Doctrine. It had a "profound impact on the coverage of news for 30 years," said Holsinger and Dilts.
The Supreme Ct. upheld the Fairness Doctrine in 1969 in the Red Lion vs. FCC
decision which emphasized that the airwaves are to be "an uninhibited marketplace
of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail rather than to countenance
monopolization of the market."
In a profound blow to free speech, Ronald Reagan's FCC declared the Fairness
Doctrine obsolete after receiving a complaint the administration did not wish to resolve made by the Syracuse Peace Council pertaining to a broadcast in which arguments in support of nuclear power outnumbered arguments against it by ten to one.
One of his main reasons for doing so was that the Supreme Court explained in the Red Lion decision that the Fairness Doctrine is justified because of "the
scarcity" of radio frequencies.
The Reagan administration said that now that we have cable and Internet, it is no longer justified.
In Miami Herald Publishing vs. Tornillo, the court responded to this argument. The court said, "We are not prepared , however, to reconsider our longstanding
approach without some signal from Congress or the FCC that technological
developments ahve advanced so far that some revision of the system of broadcast
regulation may be required."
So Reagan's FCC sent the signal and abolished the doctrine.
THE SUPREME COURT SETS OUT TO RESTORE THE FREE AND BALANCED FLOW OF INFORMATION:
Later, in 1994, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of scarcity in the Turner
Broadcasting Decision Vs. FCC. In this decision, the court said: "Although courts and commentators have criticized the scarcity rationale since its inception, we have declined to question its continuing validity as support for our broadcast jurisprudence." (THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCE SPOKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY.)
And keep in mind that the public has a LEGAL RIGHT to broadcasting that serves the ends and purposes of the First Amendment -- broadcasting that tells all relevant points of view -- an uninhibited marketplace of ideas where truth can prevail.
This right of yours and mine CAN NOT BE DONE AWAY WITH BY CONGRESS OR FCC -- said the court.
This Rush Limbaugh programs and 1,999 others, that monopolizes, telling only one point of view, is highly illegal.
However, the FCC has refused to resume regulation of broadcasts to ensure that all sides of controversial issues are aired.
No one in Congress or the FCC seems to realize that the Supreme Court ruled on the scarcity of broadcast frequencies and overturned Reagan's justification for
abolishing the Fairness Doctrine.
Below are longer excerpts of the two Supreme Court decisions mentioned above:
Red Lion vs. Federal Communication Commssion -- 1969:
"Because of the scarcity of radio frequencies, the government is permitted to put restrictions on licensees in favor of others whose views should be expressed on this unique medium. But the people as a hole retain their interest in free speech by radio and their collective right to have the medium function consistently with the ends and purposes of the First Amendment. It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters which is paramount. ... It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail rather than to countenance monopolization of the market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee. ... It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here, that right may not be constitutionally abridged either by Congress or FCC."
Turner Broadcasting vs. FCC -- 1994:
"It is true that our cases have permitted more intrusive regulation of broadcast
speakers than of speakers in other media. But the rationale for applying a less rigorous standard of First Amendment scrutiny to broadcast regulation does not apply in the context of cable regulation. The justification for our distinct approach to broadcast regulation rests upon the unique physical limitations of the broadcast medium. As a general matter, there are more would be broadcasters than frequencies available in the electromagnetic spectrum. And if two broadcasters were to attempt to transmit over the same frequency in the same locale, they would interfere with one another's signals, so that neither could be heard at all. The scarcity of broadcast frequencies thus required the establishment of some regulatory mechanism to divide the electromagnetic spectrum and assign specific frequencies to particular broadcasters. In addition, the inherent physical limitation on the number of speakers who may use the broadcast medium has been thought to require some adjustment in traditional First Amendment analysis to permit the Government to place limited content restraints, and impose certain affirmative obligations, on broadcast licensees. As we said in Red Lion, '[w]here there are substantially more individuals who want to broadcast than there are
frequencies to allocate, it is idle to posit an unabridgeable First Amendment
right to broadcast comparable to the right of every individual to speak, write, or publish.' Although courts and commentators have criticized the scarcity rationale since its inception, we have declined to question its continuing validity as support for our broadcast jurisprudence. The broadcast cases are inapposite in the present context because cable television does not suffer from the inherent limitations that characterize the broadcast medium."
---------------------------
Note: Keep in mind that the court explained that while it would be
unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment, for the government to
intervene to enforce fairness on cable news or in newspapers, the opposite is true in regard to broadcasting. Broadcasting is a "unique" medium. The airwaves legally belong to the people, are a scarce public resource and broadcasters are licensed to serve public interest, the government may intervene to make broadcasting serve "the ends and purposes of the First Amendment" by preventing "monopolization of the market." (Again, its rooted in the First Amendment.)
More Technical Information:
When abolishing the Fairness Doctrine, Reagan's FCC also argued that the Fairness Doctrine has a chilling affect on free speech, that the FCC should allow one- sided, bias reporting because if you mandate that all sides be told, the broadcasters would simply avoid certain issues and say nothing.
He justified this by the Supreme Ct. case the Federal Communications Commission
v. League of Women Voters of California. In this case, the court said it would have to re-evaluate the Fairness Doctrine if the FCC can demonstrate that the Fairness Doctrine does not enhance coverage of controversial issues.
(I say if they don't want to tell all sides, fine, give the license to someone
else. And again, the doctrine had a profound effect on the coverage of news for 30 years. There was a sharp decline in balance when the doctrine was abolished.
FURTHERMORE, IT WAS TO BE THE COURT THAT MAKES THE DECISION, NOT THE FCC.)
The court addressed the possibility of the doctrine having a chilling affect in
the Red Lion decision: "The Fairness Doctrine in the past has had no such overall effect. That this will occur now seems unlikely, however, since if present licensees should suddenly prove timorous, the Commission is not powerless to insist that they give adequate and fair attention to public issues. It does not violate the First Amendment to treat licensees given the privilege of using scarce radio frequencies as proxies for the entire community, obligated to give suitable time and attention to matters of great public concern."
Moreover, the Red Lion decision makes it clear that the people have a First
Amendment right to a Fairness Doctrine, that monopolization of the radio by one
point of view violates that right and that our right to receive full information -- full access to the country's rich diverse dialogue -- "can not be abridged by Congress or the FCC" (The Federal Communications Commission):
----------------------------
After Reagan's wrongheaded destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, the nature of
radio changed. About 2000 programs became yellow journalism -- conservative
propaganda of the rich with no effort at balance, in complete abdication of the
Red Lion Supreme Ct. decision and Section 315 of the 1959 Communication Act.
Only 50 programs in the country are liberal.
"People from other industrial democracies are shocked and puzzled by our right
wing propaganda machine," said Dr. Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the graduate
school of the University of California, Berkeley and author of the book, "The New Media Monopoly."
Here's a typical example of conservative radio propaganda. A broadcaster said,
"Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are coming after your pensions and health care!"
That one stung, for just the opposite is true.
Dr. Bagdikian explained that in the years since 1980, "The political spectrum of the United States has shifted radically to the far right. What was once the center has been pushed to the left, and what was the far right is now the center. What was considered the eccentric right wing of American politics is now considered the normal conservative outlook. What was the left is now at the far edge, barely holding its precarious position and treated in the news as a sometimes amusing oddity."
Exposing Every Lie: Ryan Not a Deficit Hawk
"Mr. Ryan -- who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts -- is still posing as a deficit hawk," wrote Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize recipient in economics, journalist with the New York Times and professor with Princeton University.
--------------------------------------------
Senator Bernie Sanders: Republicans Would Impoverish the Elderly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scQRRfcQHqg
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Conservative Supreme Court Justices Deliver A Blow To Democracy
President Obama called it "a victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests. ..."
in a bitterly divided Supreme Court in 2010, the conservative majority (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Souter, and Scalia) won out over the liberal-leaning justices (Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotmayor) to prohibit the government from restricting corporate or union cash in political campaigns -- overturning 100 years of precedent.
Now, due to the Citizen's United vs. Federal Communication's decision, corporate money can flood our elections and the corporations are not even required to disclose where the money is from.
In a passionate 90 page dissent, Justice Stevens said, "A democracy can not function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are bought and sold."
He noted that 80 percent of the public "view corporate independent expenditure as a method used to gain unfair legislative access."
He said that The court's ruling "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."
He further argued that the majority opinion ignored the rights of shareholders who might not wish to fund speech they oppose.
In sharp contrast, the conservative Heritage Foundation fellow Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, celebrated the decision: "The Supreme Court has restored a part of the First Amendment that had been unfortunately stolen by Congress ..."
Republicans have many times filibustered the efforts of Democrats to curb the deleterious, corrupting influence of corporate cash (bribery) in our elections.
The Democrats struggle to fix the problem
Obama decried the fact that "no one knows who is behind these (political) ads."
He said that he and the Democrats are backing legislation proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that requires that the "folks financing" political ads "are discosed."
(This way, we're alert to hidden agendas.)
"It will enable the American people to make up their own minds," he said.
Obama added that the bill will also reduce foreign influence in our American elections.
But, as usual, not one Republican supports the legislation, for they have lost their independent thinking. But Democrats need at least one Republican to pass the legislation.
UPDATE: Republicans did kill the Disclose Act in July, 2012.
---------------------------------------------
Unbelievable. Romney Promises To Repeal Our Health Care Reform
Can you believe it?
Again and again, Romney promises to repeal our wonderful health care reform legislation, the Affordable Care Act, which was passed by Democrats without Republican support.
Romney must be in the hip pocket of health insurance companies.
If Obama Care is repealed, approximately 50 million people will have no insurance and many of them will not be able to go to the doctor. Many will die.
Furthermore, 138,000 Americans with pre-existing conditions will not be able to purchase health insurance.
Also, if the legislation is repealed, pain staking, well-advised efforts to REDUCE OUR DEFICIT while CONTROLLING THE COSTS of healthcare will fall by the wayside.
The health care bill contains four cost control mechanisms that were devised by twenty-three prominent economists, including Nobel laureates and members of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Here are the economists that devised the cost control mechanisms:
Dr. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford -- Nobel Laureate
Dr. Alan Auerbach, University of Calif, Berkeley
Dr. Katherine Baicker, Harvard University
Dr. Alan Blinder, Princeton University
Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University
Dr. Angus Deaton, Princeton University
Dr. J. Bradford DeLong, Univ. of Calif, Berkeley
Dr. Peter Diamond, Mass. Institute of Tech.
Dr. Victor Fuchs, Stanford University
Dr. Alan Garber, Stanford University
Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Mass. Institute of Tech.
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Daniel McFadden, U.of Calif., Berkeley, Nobel Laureate
Dr. David Meltzer, Univ. of Chicago
Dr. Joseph Newhouse Harvard University
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton University
Dr. Robert Reischauer, The Urban Institute
Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University
Dr. John Shovern, Stanford University
Johnathan Skinner, Dartmouth College
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley
Obama is standing on the shoulders of our best and brightest!
The cost control mechanisms the economists devised are not only projected to prevent double digit premium increases, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that these cost control mechanisms will also reduce the federal budget deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years.
Over the last two years, health care cost did continue to rise, but the rise was slower than at any time in the last 50 years.
Romney blames the increase in costs on Obama Care and spits out free market, libertarian rhetoric that government is "not affective in bringing down the cost of ANYTHING."
The best strategy of Democrats for controlling healthcare costs was to form a non-profit, government-ran program to compete with the private health insurance companies. However, this proposal was defeated when one Democrat, Joe Liberman, a senator from Massachusetts, decided to vote with Republicans against it.
-----------------------------------------------
How was health care reform subsidies paid for? Taxes on health care corporations, such as hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, companies that make medical equipment etc. After all, they will be getting $32 million or $50 million more customers because of healthcare reform.
-------------------------------------------
MORE SHORT YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIPS ON THE ELECTION:
Romney’s Incessant Bold Face Lies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5lum_h7-8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=17&feature=plcp
Reich: Romney Lied about Welfare and Medicare Cuts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpGxWHegmmw
Nobel Winner Debunks Romney's Lies About Medicare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yl-btElJkk
Romney Is Still Outsourcing Jobs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpKU1_1UEU
Romney and Ryan's Radical Budget Ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBf7PjfYOoQ
Romney's Radical Ideas On Healthcare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgz6TRPy7ZY
Radical Ryan: Privatize Social Security:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bspUa-udAs8&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=13&feature=plcp
Concerning Romey's Plans to Repeal Obama's Wall Street Reform (Dodd Frank Act)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ePxNziHw9c
Concerning Romney's Embrace of Coal (He denounces "environmental extremism" that would keep us from utilizing our coal resources and other fossil fuels "to the fullest extent.")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kYeVF75RRk
Up With Chris Hayes Show: (MSNBC) Romney More Likely to Attack Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_6j0Sfwsw&list=UUgbJrl1Izw8HmxxD570rZJw&index=14&feature=plcp
The Up With Chris Hayes Show:(MSNBC) Obama Would Remove Afghan Troops Quicker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEfqdZC9duU
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hawks and Doves – Conservatives v. Liberals
During Jimmy Carter's administration, no bombs fell and no bullets were fired. Call it idealistic. Call it liberal. Call it strong.
Notice that during the Iran hostage crisis, when Reagan took office, the Iranians immediately released the hostages. They knew, without a doubt, he was a hawk and would invade the country if they had not done so. Hundreds of thousands of people might have died senseless and tragic deaths in a prolonged war.
Reagan was a mad man.
The Tao says, "Everyone knows the paradox that the weak will overcome the strong, and the gentle will prevail in the end."
The Tao also says, "Purity and stillness are the norm of the world. Simply do not contend then there will be no fault. Excellence is not winning arguments."
---------------------------------
Videos explaining war and peace issues in this election:
Republicans for War in Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYKGFCM0rk
Romney the Barbarian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV7DtwaXgOI
----------------------------------
Look at the PARTY and it's HISTORY. That’s because there is a SHADOW GOVERNMENT behind the scenes. The super rich pay more than a billion dollars in campaign funds and then own their man.
There no longer seems to be any independent thinking. That was a thing of the past.
When Republican congressmen come through the door, if the thumb is up, they vote yes. If the thumb is down, they vote no.
Romney sometimes talks moderate, as Republicans always do to get in power. Then he turns right around and spew far right lasseiz faire, anti government rhetoric.
Romney is slick Willy -- all things to all people. That’s how you win elections. To the rich, he says again and again across the country he will cut their taxes. Then in the debate he says he won’t. Much much lying has been going on.
------------------------------------------------------
Exposing Every Lie: Ryan Not a Deficit Hawk
"Mr. Ryan -- who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only
about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts -- is still posing as a deficit hawk," wrote
Dr. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize recipient in economics, journalist with the New York Times and professor with Princeton University.
CLEARING UP MISUNDERSTANDINGS:
Who Was to Pay for the health care subsidies? These DIDN'T COME OUT OF THE BUDGET. THESE WERE TO COME OUT OF TAXES AND FEES ON WEALTHY HEALTH CARE INDUSTRIES such as hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, companies that do X rays, companies that create healthcare products etc., as well as tobacco companies. After all, the health care legislation gives them 32 - 50 million more customers -- people that can now go to the doctor because of our strong Barack Obama.
-----------------------------------
The best strategy of Democrats for controlling healthcare costs was to form a non-profit, government-ran program to compete with the private health insurance companies. However, this proposal was defeated when one Democrat, Joe Liberman, a senator from Massachusetts, decided to vote with Republicans against it.
-----------------------------------------------
See my youtube channel: birdsongannie
See my website at: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
See my youtube channel: birdsongannie
See my website at: http://www.anniebirdsong.info
Annie Birdsong
May we create a wonderful world for the children.
CAN YOU SEND THIS EMAIL TO 7 PEOPLE – FOR THE BABIES?
MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
Nov 4, 2012, 12:14:31 PM11/4/12
to
Annie Birdsong
CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
> Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
Jope
Nov 4, 2012, 1:12:18 PM11/4/12
to
On Nov 4, 12:14 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
You do realize that Communism and Islam are incompatible.Try to inform
yourself .Please.
yourself .Please.
MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
Nov 4, 2012, 2:33:01 PM11/4/12
to
Jope
Under OBAMUNISM, which do you think would prevail?
http://washingtonexaminer.com/photo/pid/2535859
http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/160688.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/ringo137/Barack_fawkes.jpg
YES WE CAN! What you mean WE paleface?
> On Nov 4, 12:14 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
>> Annie Birdsong
>>
>> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending Reverse Ob
> ama s Cuts
>>
>> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
>> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>>
>> http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
>> OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
>
> You do realize that Communism and Islam are incompatible.
LIB reading comprehension notwithstanding,
>>
>> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending Reverse Ob
> ama s Cuts
>>
>> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
>> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>>
>> http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
>> OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
>
> You do realize that Communism and Islam are incompatible.
Under OBAMUNISM, which do you think would prevail?
http://washingtonexaminer.com/photo/pid/2535859
http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/160688.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/ringo137/Barack_fawkes.jpg
YES WE CAN! What you mean WE paleface?
Jope
Nov 4, 2012, 8:29:58 PM11/4/12
to
On Nov 4, 2:33 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
<ExPresid...@au.revoir.gov> wrote:
> Jope
>
> > On Nov 4, 12:14 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
> >> Annie Birdsong
>
> >> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending Reverse Ob
> > ama s Cuts
>
> >> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
> >> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>
> >>http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
> >> OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
>
> > You do realize that Communism and Islam are incompatible.
>
> LIB reading comprehension notwithstanding,
> Under OBAMUNISM, which do you think would prevail?
>
> http://washingtonexaminer.com/photo/pid/2535859http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/160688.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/ringo137/Barack_fawkes.jpg
> Jope
>
> > On Nov 4, 12:14 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
> >> Annie Birdsong
>
> >> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending Reverse Ob
> > ama s Cuts
>
> >> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
> >> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>
> >>http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
> >> OBAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
>
> > You do realize that Communism and Islam are incompatible.
>
> LIB reading comprehension notwithstanding,
> Under OBAMUNISM, which do you think would prevail?
>
>
> YES WE CAN! What you mean WE paleface?
Your motivations are dubious.
> YES WE CAN! What you mean WE paleface?
Message has been deleted
MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
Nov 5, 2012, 8:25:46 AM11/5/12
to
(Denny) wrote
>
> Would 2 trillion EXTRA defense dollars make you finally feel safe?
If it is Peace that you want it is DICTATORSHIP you must oppose.
If it is WAR that you wish to prevent it is the expropriation
of private capital you must oppose.
WAR, in fact, is only possible when the wealth of the nation
is held by its leaders rather than being rightly utilized
by its citizens.
A Free and Productive people have nothing to gain from WAR,
and, in fact, a great deal to lose.
OBAMA, the first $Billion presidential candidate, spent $1Billion/hour
continuously for the first 100 days of his office guarenteeing a
WAR beyond all historical precident.
To re-select OBAMA as Dictator is to set
in motion a holocaust on a global scale.
SUCH would not be Tolerated in a Society with a long memory.
LIBs. WHAT PRICE THEIR VISION?
---
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/being-obama_591426.html
Being Obama
What makes President Obama’s executive passivity so interesting is that it
seems to be a symptom not of policy uncertainty, but of personal
narcissism. The president is free to delegate the tasks of the president
because he’s already done the important job of simply showing up.
...
Bill Clinton’s vanity was that he wished he could have been at the center
of a world historical event. Barack Obama’s vanity is that he believes he
is a world historical event. And the greatness of his being dwarfs any
necessity to establish greatness through action. That’s why, despite his
passivity as president, we’re likely to see a much more vigorous Obama in
the coming months as he switches from governing to campaigning. However
ambivalent he may be about leading the country, arguing for the
indispensability of Barack Obama is the one project that has always
commanded his full attention.
History repeats itself, first as Tragedy (Clinton), then as FARCE (OBAMA).
If a President of the United States
ever lied to the American people he should resign.
-- William J. Clinton, 1974
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bam_benghazi_lies_U
8R3y5iHVbs3uurhjsiMjO
OBAMA's BENGHAZI LIES.
> MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
>> Annie Birdsong
>> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
>>
>> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
>> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>>
>> http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
>> OB
> wAMUNISM:: WOMEN'S RIGHTS BURKA STYLE.
>> > Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
>>
>> OBAMA policy made simple for LIBs.
>> CHOOSE OBAMA. GET BURKA. IT REALLY IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
>>
>> http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/185528.gif
>> OB
>
> Would 2 trillion EXTRA defense dollars make you finally feel safe?
If it is Peace that you want it is DICTATORSHIP you must oppose.
If it is WAR that you wish to prevent it is the expropriation
of private capital you must oppose.
WAR, in fact, is only possible when the wealth of the nation
is held by its leaders rather than being rightly utilized
by its citizens.
A Free and Productive people have nothing to gain from WAR,
and, in fact, a great deal to lose.
OBAMA, the first $Billion presidential candidate, spent $1Billion/hour
continuously for the first 100 days of his office guarenteeing a
WAR beyond all historical precident.
To re-select OBAMA as Dictator is to set
in motion a holocaust on a global scale.
SUCH would not be Tolerated in a Society with a long memory.
LIBs. WHAT PRICE THEIR VISION?
---
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/being-obama_591426.html
Being Obama
What makes President Obama’s executive passivity so interesting is that it
seems to be a symptom not of policy uncertainty, but of personal
narcissism. The president is free to delegate the tasks of the president
because he’s already done the important job of simply showing up.
...
Bill Clinton’s vanity was that he wished he could have been at the center
of a world historical event. Barack Obama’s vanity is that he believes he
is a world historical event. And the greatness of his being dwarfs any
necessity to establish greatness through action. That’s why, despite his
passivity as president, we’re likely to see a much more vigorous Obama in
the coming months as he switches from governing to campaigning. However
ambivalent he may be about leading the country, arguing for the
indispensability of Barack Obama is the one project that has always
commanded his full attention.
History repeats itself, first as Tragedy (Clinton), then as FARCE (OBAMA).
If a President of the United States
ever lied to the American people he should resign.
-- William J. Clinton, 1974
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bam_benghazi_lies_U
8R3y5iHVbs3uurhjsiMjO
OBAMA's BENGHAZI LIES.
MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
Nov 5, 2012, 8:29:23 AM11/5/12
to
Jope
And OBAMA's aren't? Typical LIB.
As wave after wave of Terror appear over the horizon
as did so many Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain
LIBs not only deny their point of origin, Not Only demand
that we prosecute each pilot as an individual, BUT ALSO demand
that believe that their objective is unknowable even as LIBs urge
them on to their targets.
LIBs. What PRICE their Vision?
---
DEMAND TRUTH.
DESERVE PEACE.
DESERVE FREEDOM.
DEMAND COMPETANCE.
DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY.
DEFEAT LIB STRATEGIC INSANITY.
> On Nov 4, 2:33 pm, MANFRED the heat seeking OBOE
As wave after wave of Terror appear over the horizon
as did so many Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain
LIBs not only deny their point of origin, Not Only demand
that we prosecute each pilot as an individual, BUT ALSO demand
that believe that their objective is unknowable even as LIBs urge
them on to their targets.
LIBs. What PRICE their Vision?
---
DEMAND TRUTH.
DESERVE PEACE.
DESERVE FREEDOM.
DEMAND COMPETANCE.
DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY.
DEFEAT LIB STRATEGIC INSANITY.
weheard...@aol.com
Nov 5, 2012, 8:44:45 AM11/5/12
to
On Sunday, November 4, 2012 8:42:18 AM UTC-8, Annie Birdsong wrote:
> Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
>
>
>
>
>
> In the year 2012, the U.S. Defense Department spent $530 billion -- that's $1,095,403 per minute and $18,256 per second.
Annie, did you really put a $10 million bounty on Dianne Feinstein?
> Romney: Increase Defense Spending – Reverse Obama’s Cuts
>
>
>
>
>
> In the year 2012, the U.S. Defense Department spent $530 billion -- that's $1,095,403 per minute and $18,256 per second.
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